Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

The Senate has sat for eight days. This is day 8. It could have been put on the Notice Paper. The minister could have been afforded the opportunity to speak with people about it or indeed to withdraw the bill himself if he felt that that was the outcome that was going to be needed to be done. But there was no courtesy—no observing of how the Senate runs through formal motions. It's just a straight stunt pulled at the end of formal motions on the final sitting day without any courtesy to the minister and whilst a bill is before a committee.

I've been in here long enough to have had lectures from a number of people in this place that, if a bill is before a committee, it's sacrosanct. That is, the inquiry is underway. The Senate voted on 20 October to extend the reporting date to 21 November. We haven't got to the reporting date. The government hasn't received the report of the committee. That report of the committee might have said, 'Discharge the bill from the Notice Paper,' and the government would have responded to the report. But the report hasn't even been written. It hasn't been delivered. I have sat here plenty of times and been given lectures about why bills before committee should be allowed to report—but not this one, after the Senate itself has voted to extend the reporting date.

I understand how this is going to go today. But I am saying the standards here are unusual: the lack of consultation, the lack of discussion and the lack of opportunity for the minister to speak with any of the movers of this motion—Senator Pocock, Senator McKenzie or Senator Shoebridge—and to respond to your concerns on a matter that is currently before a committee which Senator Ciccone chairs and isn't due to report until 21 November. I would have thought—again, after we've just resolved one of the other issues in the Senate this week—that courtesy and convention matter. It just seems that that doesn't matter to most in this chamber. They can go and stand and pontificate about everyone else but when it comes to actually observing some of the conventions in this place—have a talk to a minister, for goodness's sake. Put it on the Notice Paper. Put a formal motion. Put a notice of motion on the Notice Paper. That is why you give notice that people have courtesy to actually understand and the opportunity to talk or amend or discuss or—